


Blow away the cobwebs in my brain.

by CreamcheeseBagel



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Abused Gavin, Abusive Relationships, Connor & Upgraded Connor | RK900 are Siblings, Crying, Depressed Gavin Reed, Deviant Upgraded Connor | RK900, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Gavin Reed Redemption, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Minor Original Character(s), Non-Consensual Drug Use, Past Sexual Abuse, Top Upgraded Connor | RK900
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-19
Updated: 2019-01-14
Packaged: 2019-08-04 10:16:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16344884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CreamcheeseBagel/pseuds/CreamcheeseBagel
Summary: What does it mean to be human anymore? What does it mean to love or be loved?Gavin Reed doesn't like to dwell on these thoughts, or himself, or the twisted routine he can't escape. A tiny slither of him wants to tell the RK900 unit- no, Nines- how much he's hurting, but surely the misguided love of a human is better than leaning on a machine?





	1. We run but we always come back.

Sometimes in the early hours of the morning, when Gavin wakes and the world looks grey, he wonders if he’s actually in a simulation. A cog in the machine, going through the motions. If he were he would be the rusty bolt that somehow manages to get loose, but the machines continue churning without him, or at least that’s his general consensus on the ridiculous idea when it creeps upon him.

But today, as he’s sliding over the bonnet of a car and chasing a suspect, his life feels like a shitty action film. One where he is never the hero, no matter how hard he tries.

‘Fucking microwaves!’ Gavin is shouting, frantically pumping his arms as he dashes through the alleyway and bursts into an abandoned carpark. His lost sight of the suspect amongst the husks of warped metal. ‘Leaving me to chase this arsehole’.

Well, that wasn’t entirely true but Gavin was too proud to admit that. Infact he’d ordered the two androids to chase the second suspect together, enjoying the small frown Connor couldn’t hide at having to pair up with his brother. He knew he’d get two birds with one stone today; one he would make sure that Connor was bested by RK900 and left embarrassed, two he’d catch a suspect by himself and claim that needing two androids, to catch one human, was really a drain on the police department’s coffer after all.  
However like Gavin had often thought, his life was a pile of wank that never went his way.

Gavin darts to the first rotting car, pressing his back to the indented door and raising his gun. He breathes deeply, waiting for his que. It takes half a minute for the suspect to get cocky. Gavin is instantly on his feet when the suspect loudly curses and clambers out from behind a van. He moves between cars as the man begins to make his courtesy call.

‘Freeze, arsehole!’ Gavin screams, ducking out from an adjacent vehicle and levelling his gun. And in that precise moment where the drug dealer slams the flip phone shut and turns to snarl at Gavin, he knows he’s just jumped off a cliff with no parachute. He knows that face, somewhere deep in his subconscious, but he can’t place the ashen beard or hint of a tattoo beneath the right eye. Gavin’s stomach twists violently. ‘Drop the phone and put your hands in the air, or I’ll put a hole in your kneecap!’ he barks, advancing.

The man tosses the phone to skitter beneath the van, and smiles.

‘Don’t get smart, ya piece of shit. Hands up. Up’.

The man raises his arms high above his head and smiles wider. ‘Never knew D’s whore was a pig’.

‘Get on the ground!’ Gavin shouted, motioning with his gun. He feels sick. But the man moves closer, wordlessly daring Gavin to shoot him, but he doesn’t.

‘But you’re not going to arrest me, are you?’

Gavin wants to flinch but he remains outwardly stoic, breathing quickly as the man’s tattooed fingers wrap around the gun and tug it, effortlessly, from his fingers.  
It goes against everything he knows, and it collides with everything D had taught him to be.

‘No, but the plastic prick will’ and with that Gavin dives backwards as the blur of Nines races around him, leaping through the air, steely eyes locked on his target. Nines ducks and rolls, coming up behind the drug dealer, his right hand snaps the bones of the hand holding the gun and his left slams into the back of the neck. The drug dealer collapses in the blink of an eye and Gavin breathes harder, quashing his fear of this new and improved Connor.

‘Detective?’ Nines asks, having handcuffed the target already and standing with an intent stare. ‘As I am not permitted to comment on your internal organs- I shall comment that you look unwell, are you okay?’.

Gavin opens his mouth to answer as his phone vibrates in his back pocket, and he nods stiffly. He knows that not answering the call is dangerous, however nothing good would come from Nines hearing the man on the other end of the phone.  
The job had been routine, easy by everyone’s standards- including Hank. Small timers, such as the unconscious drug dealer, were never truly alone whilst they scored and settled; they had eyes in the darkened entrances to buildings, ears in the walls.  
Gavin knew he should have let Nines take the chase to begin with, that this wouldn’t end well, not in this neck of the woods. But he was hungry for recognition in light of his towering colleague. And now he was just desperate, well and truly, to skulk away from everything.

‘Just get him back to the station and leave me the fuck alone. I’ve got a call to make’.


	2. We talk but no one listens.

Gavin sinks forwards, breathless against the porcelain of the toilet, his fingers clammy and slick around the lid. The world was too hot, a suffocating ebb of warmth pushing in around him. He screws his eyes shut to the nausea, bumping his forehead to the seat, swallowing the acidic bubble that refuses to leave in a rush. Gavin burps and in that moment, of pure dry heaving and the unbearable heat, he knows deep down in himself that he has hit rock bottom, and he doesn’t have it in him to climb the cavern.

The door creaks open with a muffled bump and Gavin lifts his heavy head, and peels his eyes open to gape at the blur moving towards him. A voice swims among the air, angry and sharp, hissing and shouting down at Gavin. The voice is berating; Gavin can’t quite catch the muffle of words but his stomach rolls all the same, at the back of his mind he knows that voice and his body begins to shake again.  
He’s too far gone to flinch away, to crawl, fight or even beg. Gavin instead gasps as a fists punches him backwards, his nose grinding against the rings. He tumbles boneless, sinking backwards as the body pushed down above him, thick fingers prying his mouth open.  
Gavin wants to scream against the intrusion, kick and bite and really make them suffer. However, he’s lost among the haze, his tongue swirling the tablets around his mouth. It’s sour and acidic and he’s swallowing it all as though his life depends on it. Everything burns and Gavin screws his eyes shut to the hands around his throat, and submits to the cocktail of drugs thrumming through his veins.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Gavin groans low in his throat as his world comes alive around him. He blinks into the carpet, his carpet and panic surges through his chest. Gavin twists into a crouch and launches himself to his feet, panting heavy and hard as his eyes frantically track around his lounge. He’s home but he shouldn’t be. Gavin spins around, two cats padding from the room in fright and he wants to scream.  
He should be waking up in the bathroom of the crack den, stumbling home with the promise to never let _that_ man near him again; but he’s home and that scares him the most.

‘Okay,’ Gavin shouted, pushing his knuckles into the fresh bruising on his left cheekbone, ‘okay, okay. We’ve got this. Ha, yeah. We’re okay. Fuck. Never better!’. His chest burns with every word, but talking aloud to himself quells the voices in his head. He keeps his eyes open because he knows he’ll see his face behind his eyelids, but he does blink rapidly and breathes, and anchors himself to the messy apartment he stands in.  
He can hears his cats in the bedroom, mewling and purring and he allows himself a small smile. He can deal with the fallout and the fear another time.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Gavin slouches through the precinct, all smirks and narrowed eyes. He tugs his jacket collar up as Tina shuffles past him towards the break room, he doesn’t miss a step and scratches his bruised cheekbone with his middle finger, the pair sharing a brief eye roll.  
They never discuss his bruises. Infact no one does, he hides them well. Even Hank, who Gavin had once been closed to before Cole, well even he doesn’t truly know the depths of Gavin’s poison.

‘Detective Reed, are you well?’ comes the sharp questioning of Connor’s younger brother. The android strides from the break room and stares hard at Gavin, his head cocking ever so slightly, a synthetic hand wrapped tight around a steaming coffee. Gavin could almost imagine the gears churning as the grey eyes glossed over for a fraction of a second, and his skin crawls.

‘Don’t scan me, tincunt!’ Gavin hisses in relation, his upper lip curling. He moves away, a shitty attempt at hiding the bruising from eyes that could see everything. He wants to fall through the floor and disappear. ‘Stop giving me that look!’. But the RK900, or Nines as it had insisted after the second month, quirks a brow and presses the coffee into Gavin’s unwilling hand with the hint of a scowl. ‘I don’t want-‘

‘You look like shit,’ Nines quipped back, confident and Gavin grunts. He was too tired and strung up to go through the motions today. Couldn’t summon the annoyance he knew he should feel from the drugs, but maybe Damien had fed him with enough water before having his way and dumping him. But hey, he got home safe right? Everything was going to be all right, he reasoned, as long as he didn’t think too hard about that night, and Damien, and his fingers and-

‘Fuck!’ Gavin hadn’t even noticed that he wasn’t truly riding the come down. He gulped hard. He was more pliant with the drugs forced into his system. It was almost a party trick of Damien’s now. Call Gavin as soon as the man had started to feel safe, whisper for him to meet- now. Drop everything and run back towards the sweet promises. Get him high, get him desperate; but as soon as that high hits, snatch away the budding euphoria, make him want it more as he lulls limp and confused, caught between two worlds and too stoned to utilise the anger he should be feeling.  
A come down would have meant hiding from work, but also that he had gotten home on his own terms. ‘I need to go’.

Nines rolls his eyes and moves to snatch Gavin’s arm, but the human flinches away sharply. Nines retracts his fingers, his eyes methodically wandering from the fractured cheekbone to the creeping flush of green beneath the upturned collar.

‘You seem confused’.

Gavin wants to laugh; he hadn’t even checked what day it was. How long had Damien kept him this time? Gavin was fun on the gear; loud and angry, up for a fight. But he wouldn’t put out. He wasn’t allowed home until he submitted.

‘I-I- what day is it?,’ Gavin mumbles, stumbling away. He went to Damian when the man clicked his fingers, bared his arms when he wanted to test his gear, offered his throat and body and every part of him he never wanted to give. But he couldn’t stop going back. Infact when did he crawl back this time, was it Monday or Friday? Where was he now?

‘Gavin?’ Nines questioning voice comes again, softer, calculated. ‘I am aware that you called in your absence the other day, so I’ll humour you this once,’ the android gave a smug smile, ‘today is Friday. You have been absent since Tuesday, when I apprehended the drug dealer’.

‘Tincan,’ Gavin breathed, a small snarl. He wants to open his mouth and explain away his blatant confusion, but he was hiding. He wants to tell his android colleague that he felt like shit too, that he needed to talk. He curls his fists but the anger isn't there, he just couldn’t project his disgust today. He had lost three days to that monster. The bastard had even made sure to call his workplace and lie.

‘Yes, Detective Reed. We are both well aware of your prejudice towards me. Now if you would stop mumbling to yourself, maybe we could make some headway on the report you keep trying to shirk off. A three day bender, as you would say, does not mean that you will get out of writing that I infact arrested the man you couldn’t’.

‘No, I-why didn’t you check up on me?’

‘You called in absent. I am more than capable to have conducted _both_ our scheduled work for the missed days’. Nines is cold in his response, a small frown greeting Gavin. However, he’s worked with the deviant long enough to hear the accusing tone; the damn android thinks his absence was a matter of pride.

‘Don’t give me that shit!’ Gavin hisses low in his throat, his jaw aching with every word spewed. ‘I-I-was…no,’ he hangs his head briefly and raises it again to school his face. He moves around the android, dropping the now cold coffee in a bin. He knows that this is his problem alone. ‘Partners look out for each other’. The irony is heavy on his tongue, so he swallows it and does what Gavin does best when he needs help; he pushes Nines away. ‘And me being away after you stole my fucking arrest has nothing to do with this-‘

‘Detective, you allowed that criminal to dis-arm you-’

‘Ti-Nines, did he say anything?’

Nines shrugs his shoulder loosely, ‘we obtained the bare minimal to get a minor conviction. It appears he was only a mule. No names’.

‘Right, okay. No names. Uh I know I haven’t been in long-‘

‘Exactly ten minutes and-‘

‘You’re making this hard for me! Just shut up and listen, okay?’ Gavin sets his jaw. ‘I’m really sick of these pushers fucking up the streets. I don’t even think I’m human anymore! He has me so fucked up, and it’s about time I said no’.

Nines eyes flicks over Gavin’s hunched frame, pulling apart the warnings firing across his vision.

‘What I’m trying to say is…I need to leave, right now. And by need, I mean I fucking am. If I don’t come back for the late shift, go feed my cats and make yourself useful’.

Gavin clamps his jaw shut, submerged in the sudden overwhelming need to prove to himself that his life was his own. An angry wave. If this damn piece of plastic could state what it wanted, he could damn well cut his ties too.

‘As your partner, it would be beneficial to know where you will be going’.

‘You’re a deviant, work it out!’ and with that Gavin strode from the precinct, his heart rate dangerously high and flashing in Nine’s concerned eyes.


	3. Leaving you, leaving me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've been following this story since the beginning, you'll notice that I've actually revamped the whole thing. I came back to this chapter aswell and decided the pacing was awful. So I redid it.
> 
> So buckle up, it's about to get angsty.

_Long fingers brush Gavin’s face and he leans into the touch, closing his eyes and smiling. There’s a hungry warmth in his chest and he kisses Damien’s hand, nips at his wrist until he flicks his eyes up and they wordlessly kiss. Gavin has never felt love like this, has never been loved like this. It consumes him._

Gavin boots his coffee table across the cramped lounge, screwing his eyes shut.

_He stood in the shadow of his half-sibling, a smudge on Kamski’s bright beacon. So when Damien had extended his hand, Gavin fell forwards and shuffled into Hell, an unknowing smile fixed upon his face. He fell hard and fast, suffocating himself within the jealous attention he had never known. Cutting himself off from the few family members and friends he did have, Gavin worshipped Damien and the heavy handed infatuation he held up as gospel. He knew nothing else._

Gavin throws his hands to his head and pulls at his hair, wrapping his fingers into the greasy locks and tugging until strands are yanked loose and he’s grounded in the pain. He opens his eyes slowly to the gloomy apartment and he’s filled with the sudden over-whelming desire to be free.

_Damien screams and Gavin shrinks away, a fistful of guilt squirming in his stomach. His mind is racing. He had disappointed his partner, again. He’s disgusting and jealous, chained down by his fear. But Damien feeds the fog in his mind with lustful eyes, wandering hands, promises that it’s only Gavin, has only ever been Gavin. But who is Gavin without Damien?_

_The violence starts soon after._

Gavin breathes out deeply, tucking the loaded pistol into the waistband of his two day old jeans. He nods to the mental acknowledgement that yes; he’s fucking got this.

_‘I know you better than you know yourself’, Damien whispers, his finger snaking to clutch Gavin’s jaw, ‘open your mouth, Gav’, and Gavin unlocks his jaw, licking his dry lips. The triangular pill, a vibrant red, is pressed onto Gavin’s tongue and he dutifully swallows the biting copper tang. ‘You’re so good, Gav. Maybe I’ll keep you forever’._

Nope, Gavin’s mind screams and he doubles over wheezing. Everything hurts as he dry heaves. The memories bouncing around his head alongside invasive thoughts of Damien kissing another, his eyes glued onto Gavin as he ravishes the body beneath him.

‘Shut up!’ Gavin grinds out, kicking an empty beer can across the carpet as he strides for the door. He can do this, he tells himself as he moves on autopilot. He blinks and he’s in the car, adjusting his rear-view mirror, his gun in his jacket now and his phone switched off on the passenger seat.

He drums his fingers against the steering wheel, counting to ten, before he shifts the gears and pulls away from his apartment. He tells himself that he doesn’t need Nines and his analytical thinking. He doesn’t need the finer points of his plan scrutinised. However, his stomach lurches with doubt and he stalls the car, a hand already turning his phone on. He knows he could dial his partner now and receive an immediate answer, but his fingers hover over the name.  
Gavin swipes the phone into the foot well with a grunt.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Gavin’s gone through half a packet of menthol cigarettes by the time he’s at the place he needs to be. He leans against the bonnet of his car, crushing the spent cigarette beneath his heel as he takes stock of the standard apartment complex before him. It’s a red brick tower that looms over its squat neighbours, well-kept with rent too extortionate to keep the average human from sniffing about. But just to make sure that the location is truly concealed, the surrounding area, within a tight radius, is owned by Damien and laundered masterfully.  
Infact the first two floors of the complex were indeed built for occupancy, however those that dwelled inside did not pay rent conventionally, and did not leave the rooms they festered within. The third floor was a second home to Damien, a maze of debauchery. The fourth and fifth floors were a mystery to Gavin; he only knew that the fire escapes led to a gated parking lot.

Gavin didn’t know what transpired within the building, aside from the third floor. To his eyes, and knowledge, Damien lived within a normal building, within a normal area, and slowly poisoned the affluent neighbourhood.

He pats the bulge of the gun in his waistband now and strides up to the grand oak doors. His fingers tapped away at numbers on a keypad attached to the door, subconsciously knowing the code. The oak slide open unnaturally, the doors separating sideways to reveal a long corridor, with doors he’s never seen open. He steps inside the metal box at the end of the hall.

‘Three’ Gavin grumbles, the old school surveillance camera flashing red above him. The doors close and the lift rises quickly. Gavin wants to pry the doors open and run away as fast as he can. But he inhales deeply instead, and frowns deeply as the doors open to a lavish red flagstone floor.  
Gavin steps from the metal and into the vastly decorated hallway of the third floor. Damien own the whole floor, the rooms having been converted into a spacious living accommodation. A single white door sits directly in the middle of the wall, adjacent to the lift opening. The rest of the hallway boasts artwork and artfully arranged seating areas. Gavin feels sick as he raps on the door.

The door clicks open. ‘I told you,’ Damien warns appearing in the doorway, stepping closer, his heels clicking loudly, ‘never to turn up uninvited, Gav’. He runs a hand through his salt and pepper hair, his upper lip curling. He lowers his hand with narrowed eyes and clicks his fingers. The sound startles Gavin, it bounces around the room. Gavin roots himself to the spot and his bladder lurches.

‘Oh, look at me. I’m being rude,’ Damien continues, throwing an arm around Gavin’s shoulders and drawing the detective into the doorway. His expression unreadable. ‘It must be _important_ if you’ve come all the way out here to visit me. I can free up a moment of my time for you. If I must’.

Gavin wants to feel relieved, but a thick twisting nausea swirls within his stomach. He remains silent as thick fingers wrap around his arm and pull him inside the small foyer. He eyes the silver trimmings, the four single doors that sprout two apiece from the left and right walls. A fountain gurgles against the far wall; an eerily realistic decoration of two men screaming on their knees, their mouths and eyes open for eternity as water trickles through.

‘It’s a new piece,’ Damien offers, his voice an amused grumble, ‘now, what was it you wanted?’ he snaps, turning to stare hard at the detective.

Gavin’s heart thuds in his chest.

‘W-we got one of your men this week’ Gavin says and immediately regrets the words. He’s here to demand this monster leave him alone, not update him.  
Damien makes a small noise of acknowledgment, patting Gavin’s chest heavily before slinking away. He turns and smiles with his teeth, one arm extended out dramatically to the water fountain.

‘I won’t punish you for my man’s incompetence, Gavin. Infact, I’ve been told that it was an _android_ who made the arrest…’ he smirks darkly, crossing his arms. ‘I knew putting you through university would be a waste of my hard earned money. But you didn’t come all this way to tell me that you’re bad at your job, did you?’

Obediently, Gavin shakes his head.

‘My men are well informed to not get greedy, again. Now, I’m not entertaining for quite some time, but you can stay if there isn’t anything else…’

‘Fuck you!’ Gavin shouts, reaching for the weapon.

Damien tilts his head with a wide smile, his eyes flashing. ‘Stop being dramatic, Gavin. You won’t arrest me. This isn’t our first argument, and I doubt it’ll be our last’.

Gavin splutters as his fingers pull down his shirt and fall, empty, at his side. Hands bawled into white knuckled fists.

‘No- Damien. You may have helped me get where I am today, but your men cannot deal on my turf. If it happens again, I’ll have to call it-‘

‘Do not play detective in my home, you ungrateful cunt!’ Damien is advancing, his teeth bared. He strikes Gavin across the face, slapping the already bruised cheek. Gavin somehow remains on his feet, his eyes rolling.  
‘Do not!’, Damien is screaming, spit flying, ‘DARE tell me what to do!’ he continues to scream as he slams his forehead into Gavin’s scrunched face, pulling the man closer as he tumbles away.  
Gavin feels like he’s floating as hands pull and fists strike. He opens his mouth to demand Damien to stop, to tell him it’s over. They’re over and that’s final.

But the room falls silent around the ragged breathing of the men. Gavin is shoved away,  and he collapses onto his twisted nose, groaning against the flagstone. He can hear the fountain trickling.

‘You never know when to shut the fuck up!’

Footsteps click closer and hot hands clamp around Gavin’s biceps and pull him upwards. Gavin breathes hard and fast through his mouth, desperately fighting to keep his eyes on the man before him.

‘Well, Gavin. You certainly know how to rile me up,’ Damien laughs, brushing Gavin down with one hand. His breath is hot against his face. ‘I have already dealt with my men’s failures. So, tell me what you have to say and get out’.

The words are garbled among the ringing in Gavin’s head, but he feels his lips peel open.

‘We’re-over-‘. 


End file.
